Recording News

Jazz Times Review of "Maynard Ferguson Presents Christian Jacob"

Source: All About Jazz
January 6, 2009

Christian Jacob (Concord Jazz)

Pianist Christian Jacob is a wonderful player whose crystalline melodies and expansive harmonies mark him as someone to keep an ear on. Although raised in France, it wasn't until arriving in the States that things started happening. There were tenures with Maynard Ferguson and Gary Burton. And now under the aegis “Maynard Ferguson Presents," Jacob makes an impressive leader debut with Ferguson alums John Patittuci and Peter Erskine. A post-bop modernist touched by the souls of ...

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Orlando Julius:Super Afro Soul

Source: JamBase
January 6, 2009

By: Trevor Pour

Quickly, off the top of your head, name a wildly influential Nigerian Afrobeat jazz and soul musician from the late '60s and '70s. Got one? If you said Fela Kuti, you're probably not alone. While Fela and son Femi Kuti are essentially household names with the jam-rock crowd these days, the catalogue of highlife pioneer Orlando Julius has somehow flown under our collective radar. Well, the kind folks at VampiSoul released a retrospective double album, which includes ...

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Brian Wilson:That Lucky Old Sun

Source: JamBase
January 6, 2009

By: Scott Caffrey

Ah yeah, this is the stuff. Friends, the world is indeed a better place now that Brian Wilson is back making his own music again. I don't mean to over-speak, but American music just wasn't the same without its greatest songwriter having a legitimate presence.

When you spin That Lucky Old Sun (Capitol Records), do yourself the favor of focusing on the music first. Sounds simple, but this incredible symphony of sounds is where Wilson and his ...

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"Jazz in the Air" Boston Jazz Trio Release "Sassy"

Source: All About Jazz
January 6, 2009

The Boston based “Jazz in the Air" jazz trio and quartet is releasing its fourth full length CD Sassy in January 2009. Songwriter and group leader Bob Sabourin has moved in a new direction with a bevy of original tunes mixing hip hop and dance rhythms with contemporary and traditional jazz stylings. The resulting tracks are fresh and upbeat, featuring Ririka Tokushige on alto and tenor sax, Michael McNeil and Joseph Reid on piano, Ken Willinger on guitar, Andrew Jones ...

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August Brown Jim Hall & Bill Frisell

Source: Michael Ricci
January 5, 2009

Hemispheres (ArtistShare) Bill Frisell with Jim Hall.

There seems to be a perception in modern jazz that free playing must be harsh and grating or at least difficult to absorb on first listen. With a number of inside-out improvisations mixed with respectfully reshuffled standards, this jazz guitar summit between 50-year veteran Jim Hall and Americana-dusted experimentalist Bill Frisell dispels that notion. The sprawling two-CD package offers a set of home-recorded duo explorations and another with Hall and Frisell backed by ...

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Marcus Goldhaber Says Take Me Anywhere with New CD

Source: All About Jazz
January 5, 2009

Marcus Goldhaber takes a variety of classic and original jazz tunes and turns them into gold on his new release Take Me Anywhere. As the title suggest the sounds on the new album can literally take you anywhere at any time. This timeless music with the sounds of traditional jazz backed by smooth and reflective vocalizations is reminiscent of early Frank Sinatra and Harry Connick Jr., As Marcus was growing up, his mother would call him over to the piano ...

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Sally Kellerman's New Album

Source: All About Jazz
January 5, 2009

Sally, the new album from Sally Kellerman will be released on February 10, 2009. One of the most recognizable voices in the world of film, television and voice-over, Sally maintains her signature sound in the recording studio and the result is a richly layered album, mixing jazzy blues and adult standards with a touch of soulful rock. Sally will be celebrating the CD release of Sally with three performances at The Rrazz Room in San Francisco on February 16, 17 ...

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Nerissa Campbell new album Musings of a Telescopic Tree

Source: All About Jazz
January 5, 2009

With elements of pop, jazz, rhumba and blues dipped in a smoky beer batter of late night living and roiling in the smoke of forgotten bars, the Brooklyn-based indie-jazz chanteuse moodily enchants with her second album. Musings of a Telescopic Tree is an album of moodiness and of melancholy - stories of desire and the sorrows of losing loved things, the weight of depression and the lightness of being. The indie-jazz singer-songwriter ponders a new approach to her ...

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